Re: The joy of Democracy

On Fri, 04 Oct 2024 17:06:43 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2024-10-04, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
 

On Thu, 03 Oct 2024 23:55:51 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>

The kind of people who benefit from "winner take all" (a.k.a "first
past the post") generally do their best to dismantle those checks and
balances.  And they have centuries of experience in gaming the system.

>
Here in NZ we got the system changed as a result of a referendum in
1993, getting rid of British-style first-past-the-post in favour of
German-style MMP.
>
It can be done, if there is the political will to do it.

 
And there you have the problem.  Here in Canada (and British Columbia
within it), we have made several desultory attempts at getting rid of
"first past the post".  All have failed.

It is possible to have some successes in that part of the world. In the
US, Alaska put in a ranked-choice system to elect their sole Federal House
of Representatives, um, Representative. That was used in the 2022 election
where Mary Peltola won over Sarah Palin. I see some other US states either
have adopted, or are considering the idea, too.

Ranked-choice is technically not “proportional representation”, but it
does have a lot of the same effect. And it might be a better fit for
places (like the US) where individuals matter more than parties.

(We went through a discussion of all the main options in the lead-up to
the 1993 referendum.)

Is Canada more party-based, like the UK and NZ?